Unfriending is official now

Unfriending is official now

Unfriending just got formal recognition – The new Oxford American Dictionary has announced it as the word of the year. For the uninitiated,
unfriend – verb – To remove someone as a ‘friend’ on a social networking site such as Facebook.
Although the word may be new, as a concept ‘unfriending’ is not something new, at least not to those who grew up in India. The Tamil word for it is ‘Kaa’. Children unfriend each other by simply telling them ‘I am Kaa with you. You are not my friend anymore.’ I think Hindi-speaking children use “katti’ for this. Kaa or katti is the most dreaded word I remember from my childhood. Imagine your best friend or a group of classmates declaring ‘kaa’ on you. It is the children's version of imposing sanctions - they won’t speak to you and you cannot play with them, share crayons or books or snacks and you are left out of all their secrets. For me and my friends there was no fate worse than being told ‘kaa’ by one’s best friend. It was the end of the world.

In primary school, breaking news usually took the form of hushed whispers about who was ‘Kaa’ with whom. And we had to choose our loyalties and keep to that side. Fence sitters were disowned by both groups. If our friend was ‘Kaa’ with another girl, the entire group was ‘kaa’ with her. It did not matter that we were not part of the fight. What mattered was loyalty and at that age friends ranked a notch above family, society and nation. If any girl violated this code and had any dealings with the other camp she was promptly unfriended too.
Sometimes unfriending was the result of a personal quarrel or the fact that a girl was ‘too proud’ or if she refused to share something with you. At other times it was a group decision because the subject had offended someone in the group. Once in the 5th standard we had unfriended a girl who happened to be the niece of one of our teachers. After a few weeks of this, the girl could not stand it and went crying to her aunt about our ‘meanness’ and so the teacher instituted an inquiry. She called each one of us and asked us why we had unfriended her niece and none of us knew why. Someone in our group had unfriended her and so we all had. And even the girl who had started it had forgotten the reason by this time! So we were all given a lecture on our shameful behavior and asked to ceremoniously ‘refriend’ the girl by shaking hands. We still continued to unfriend whenever the situation demanded it but were careful not to get caught.

‘unfriending’ through “kaa’ was left behind as childhood ended and adult life began. In adult life friends stayed on in your life no matter what. You quarreled, stopped talking but then ran to their side the moment you heard they were in trouble. They did the same too. And then came the internet and changed the whole meaning of friendship.
You meet people in a chatroom or leave a comment on their blog and the next thing you know there is a request from them to add you on Gchat or yahoo chat. You are confused but you accept the invitation anyway. They want to chat with you every time you are online, send you jokes, event notifications, cute forwards, discussion threads from them and their friends as you are part of their group mailing list. And then one day they stop. Just. like.that. And they become invisible on chat too. I have never figured out why I keep getting thrown out of these groups. While I’d have been perfectly happy if they hadn’t made me part of their group, it hurts just a little bit when they suddenly decide to unfriend without so much as a goodbye as memories of childhood "kaa' come flooding! When I wondered about this to a young friend he said that it is very normal among friendships in the virtual world which tend to die down fast. People move on, they lose interest and form other groups and it has nothing to do with me personally.
I was not totally convinced and he forwarded me this article
In dec 2008, Burger king offered free whoppers to people who unfriended 10 of their friends on facebook and thousands were willing to grab the offer. As this article pointed out
At a suggested retail price of $3.69 for the Angry Whopper sandwich, customers are trading each deleted friend for about 37 cents’ worth of bun and beef.

I asked someone the other day if X was her friend. She said, 'hmm, ya but not a friend-friend but just a facebook friend."
Friend – there was a time when this word invoked images of undying loyalty, true understanding an unconditional acceptance. Friendship once ranked at the top of the relationship chain as the most enduring value immortalized in stories such as those of Damon and Pythius, Duryodhan and Karna, Krishna and Arjuna. It seemed that a friend would be that person whom you could turn to when everything else is lost. I wonder if such friendships are ever possible on such social networking sites. Perhaps it is time they found another word for a facebook acquaintance rather than devaluing the sanctity of the word friend – how about the term Facebooker? Then you can become friends by facebooking and ‘unbook’ them when you lose interest.
Or is unfriending here to stay as a sign of our times?